An Early Start To Saturday

As we started our walk this morning I thought it was a little bit nippy while I wore my normal shorts and t-shirt. The North Face snow boots have become my summer, keep my feet dry boots. After our return I found out why it felt cold ... 58° on August 5th ... 8am.


Sadie did a sprint from the house before I even finished my 1st picture that I take every day just outside the door. As fast as she was taking off I thought we might have 'walked in' on some early morning deer. That wasn't the case though, she must have been running after nothing .. a cat nor butterfly was anywhere in sight.

Once again I saw nothing on the horizon. No deer, and no neighbors were outside. There is a large St. Bernard that lives at the house across the highway but I did not hear him barking at us. Sadie must have heard something I didn't.

There would be no 'herding' of hounds today. All three were on their own during this walk. Heidi was spread out taking as much of the couch as possible to sleep until lunch. Sadie and Stella were going to have free reign of the field ... go where they wanted as I walked along the path taking early Saturday morning pictures.

Stella continues to act more like her old self this morning. As the hounds were getting ready to go outside she nudged Sadie's nose as if she wanted to play. That is something she has not done in so long I can't remember the last time they playfully wrestled.

I could tell by the path made in the tall wet field, along the edge of the field and woods, that deer had followed this line all the way around the corner to the back of the field. Sadie and Stella was locked into that scent, working slowly to start their walk.

It's not out of the norm but I always find it interesting just how fast this field grows after it's cut in late June or early July. It has changed so much over the years. From only tall hay years ago to a lot of clover, wild flowers and weeds taking over that tall hay the past two years.

With Wunderground Weather telling me today will be an exact copy of yesterday, and that is just too hard to believe. It was so nice yesterday with a high of 71°. It will be perfect bike riding weather after this post is published. I'm going to be taking the Giant road bike out to ride for an hour or two.

Here is an interesting picture that can only be seen if I get out early enough and before the sun burns off the dew hanging on the grass. I just remembered that if I highlight each photo, one at a time, I can add a link which gives you the ability to click on any photo for a larger image.

I am not sure if you can tell in this picture but it gives you a better idea of  what all of that dew looks like for just a foot away.

At first I thought Stella was heading to meet us on the return path but the more I watched her through my 200mm zoom lens, I could see she was going to ignore my calls and walk north while Sadie and I were walking southwest.

Like most of her morning walks, Sadie's focus is mostly using her investigative abilities, more than eating the 'natural protein' I speak of at times.

Just because Stella hears me calling her name, doesn't mean she will head my way. Maybe she is just telling me to follow her instead, that she is leading the walk.

As you can see she is going to give me every chance to follow her, as she continues her walk in the opposite direction of Sadie and I.

It was a slow process, but she gradually walked a big swooping loop that led back to Sadie and I. By the time Sadie had stopped a couple of times, Stella had caught up. This picture shows she has gain some of her weight back after losing so much of it in March.

By the time we hit the shaded area of the field again on the return home, it actually felt cold. I cannot imagine ever wearing a sweatshirt in the moth of August where I live but this morning I could have.

As I arrived at the corner of the house I asked Sadie "where's Stella" ... she looked for her but not in the direction where I saw Stella.

You can barely see Stella just right of center. This would be directly behind Sadie, not in the direction Sadie was looking. That gave me time to go inside and change shoes. By the time I stepped back outside to set my boots in the sunshine to dry this morning, I could hear Stella out of sight, shaking off all the water she had collected during the walk.

As you see the Wordpress blog template (theme) has changed a few times since Friday morning. Like always I can never make up my mind. Not all have every feature I want. What I like about this design is the sidebar on the right and easy to read. My pages are easy to find, listed in tabs across the top. The posts look good when they are opened.

Each post is easy to see on the main page, especially since I have been publishing two posts per day lately. I don't do that all the time but post when I feel like writing. One of the bloggers I follow will post 5-8 times per day, depending on what his camera has captured or what is on his mind.

What I don't like about this design is the black color for the header but the are only a few choices for change. None of the choices are better if not worse. This design looks too plain, I'd like to have something a little more current with the times.

It seems that a lot of the latest or new designs have most of the things I want, except for two. Most of them put the sidebar of information and links at the very bottom of their pages or they will hide those links in a drop down menu in the upper right corner, that might not be noticed by readers. Most of those newer templates give me the option to add my own header image.

On tablets and phones the sidebar of information will always be on the bottom of the pages no matter what template I use.

Of course if I were to pay for a template, that would give me more options to make changes in design and color. But 'Free' is good when it's just a personal blog that is not monetized.

So there might be more changes to the design later, depending if I want to spend more time looking over the same 174 free templates available that I spent hours looking at yesterday and again late last night.

I noticed the state police were warning people in the local paper yesterday, about the increase of heavy traffic that will take place on August 21st, when the solar eclipse happens. I see that one of the optimum areas to view the eclipse is about a 100 miles south to southwest of me ... and ... the highway that goes in front of my house was one of those listed for increased traffic to and from that optimum area.

That will be exciting times here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The New WordPress Blog Working Out Great

While looking at the field it 'looks' much hotter than it is ... the old wall thermometer tells the real temp.

I've thought about digging this up and moving it to my flower bed. They come back growing every year and it's would not only give some color it's free. There are two of them in the field, so I think I will do that tomorrow morning before it rains on Sunday.

After the 3rd day of buffered aspirin twice per day, Stella had a little extra bounce in her step this morning. She ran faster than she has in months but not a full out sprint. It's was good to see her kinda of play with Sadie a couple of times. She takes the aspirin with no food but I always give it to her with kibble.

I thought this cloud formation was cool this morning.

Stella getting a little trotting in her workout.

Those rolls of hay will be moved eventually, most likely no later than this fall.

After kind of nudging Sadie on the nose as she ran by, Stella looks like she is feeling great this morning. Then having both feet off the ground while she ran is great to see. Her hips and back have to be feeling better.

It's also always good to see Stella's tail up and curled.

Reds game on in 10 minutes ... it will be Ballpark Franks tonight for dinner.

I LOVE the new blog.

The Hounds Close Another Week

The pace the basset hound or bloodhounds live is pretty fast at times. They never know when the next chase of deer, squirrels, cats or even butterflies will take place ... so in the meantime they will fill their days with eating, sleeping and taking walks during the day. It's rough but someone has to do it.



It was pretty obvious as they ventured outside right after their kibble at noon, that the black cat that I have seen only once in this driveway area, had been through the property last night. It was too early to be sniffing for yard moles, so it had to be cat scent.

Contrary to popular belief Heidi really does get outside every day ... in the rain, hail, sleet or snow ... even on the sunny days. By the time I came back from checking on some things in front she had already found her favorite spot in back for some noon time sun.

Just as the expert weather guessers predicted, it never got higher than 71° but the sunshine sure felt warm on her back as well as the back of my neck. I like to think those few times she has went sunbathing over the past couple of years, were a factor in her recovery.

While I wasn't noticing or taking photos of Heidi, that gave Stella plenty of time to have some desert. Nothing like having some fresh brown powered dirt pushed up through the grass by the moles after lunch kibble.

She was in denial ... but her nose gave her away.

Combined with lunch and all of that energy eating dirt before she could get caught was too much for her. It was time for a short siesta and soak up some of that warm sunshine.

When I asked Heidi if she will ever eat dirt ... she looked at me as if I was crazy for asking. Doing that is way beyond her limits. Even though Sadie and Stella are fixed females they do a lot of things you would only expect from male bloodhounds or basset hounds.

Sadie never gave up letting me know she wanted her walk now and not have to wait an hour or two after lunch. To prevent the possibility of bloat those are the rules, wait an hour or two after a meal before a walk is taken. Me? I wanted to get back inside and finish the hard decision on which blog design to use.

By 2pm Sadie let me know that she had enough of all this blog stuff. I could surely have an answer about what design to use by now, besides it had been almost 4 hours or more in front of my computer.

About that time I found something that looked like it would work quit well, even if the there were no sidebars available. So with that 98% decided Sadie got her 2 walk of the day.

With the strong winds alternating from the south and then from the west, the temps stayed cool with all the house windows open. It was almost too cold for wearing a t-shirt. Once we got out side under the sunshine, the weather was perfect and the sky was bluer than blue surrounding the clouds.

When I caught 3 butterflies in one picture I knew the field was going to be loaded with them. What I did not know was just how much Sadie enjoyed chasing them. She never catches them to where she could hurt them but she loves running and jumping after them.

Her she is in her first step of sneaking up on them so they will not see her.

It doesn't matter how far away the butterfly will go, Sadie will not stop chasing that specific one until it is out of view.

Stella doesn't care about any of that and in fact will walk right by them, close enough that the butterfly and her sides touch. Yet just like with me, or the other hounds ... when Stella is walking somewhere she will walk on our feet like we were not even there.  LOL

Chasing butterflies was not the only thing on the afternoon agenda of the bloodhounds. The last I saw Heidi, she was stretch out about as far as a basset hound could stretch, sound asleep on the couch. Sadie and Stella had other ideas. They did their exploring on the morning walk so this afternoon was not going to be anything but finding and eating the "natural protein supplement" better known as deer scat.

It doesn't matter how many times you call each of their names ... they are not moving.

Stella already knew where she was heading, no searching would be required. She also knew that she was not going to follow Sadie and I on our walk ... she had other plans.

I kept walking around the first corner and head to the back of the field. I had a pretty good idea that Sadie would sprint to catch up to me and we would pick Stella up on the way back.

Sadie was so excited she didn't know whether to chase butterflies, sprint to catch me or keep eating stuff.

If you think she is finally running to catch up to me you would be mistaken ... butterflies were now tormenting her.

Then it would be back to the fresh deer scat.

Just as I had guessed, there was Stella exactly where she was yesterday and the day before during her early afternoon walk. It will not be long before the wild flowers, weeds and grass will be too tall in the field for me to see them easily.

I told Sadie to "go get Stella" and she was off to find her.

I could see by this point I was going to have to walk over to Stella, grab her collar and coax her in the direction of the house or she wouldn't move.

On the way home what I thought the second batch of orange flowers, turned out to be two butterflies having their lunch.

So with some butterfly chasing, some walking and even some natural desert ... it was time to sleep the afternoon away until the 3rd walk of the day right before the Reds game at 6:40pm.

Like I said the pace of a hound life is fast and furious. Time flies and just like that they are ending another productive week. The hounds don't need one to tell them but my Garmin VivoSmart3 is telling me to "move" ... so it's a good spot to end the post.

I think I am actually set on this blog design. There might be a few more tweaks behind the scenes for me but you will not notice them on the blog. So far I like the change, it was a good move. I hope I can stay somewhat incognito for months to come, if not years.

Can the weather be any better than today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana?